With the arrival of Game Update 54, city festivals, a new monthly special event, were implemented. This event will run from the 1st through the 7th of each month. Each month the Far Seas Trading Company will choose one city, and set up a small festival outside that city's gates for a week-long event. After the week is over, they will pack up their wagons and disappear until the following month, when they will set up the festival outside a different city.

Each festival will include:

One vendor with temporary clothing, so you can dress up for the festival

One general items vendor with permanent appearance clothing as well as many house items that will be available at every festival event

One vendor with city-specific house items, that can only be purchased when the festival is visiting that city

One food and drink vendor with some rather, um, odd, offerings

One quest NPC, offering 3 quests that reward tokens that can be spent at any festival event

One city-specific glowie collection, that will spawn in the actual host city itself

One aether race located near that city's festival

City-Specific Offerings

Each city will have one vendor full of house items that are unique to the festival for that city. (Those items will only be available when the festival visits that specific city). I will cover each with a separate article, linked below. (The below is the order in which the cities are currently visited, so if you know where the most recent festival occurred, you can figure out where the next one will occur.)

Freeport (May & November) - the festival is located east of the wizard spires, just outside the Crossroads in the Commonlands. Glowies during this location for the festival are located inside Freeport

New Halas (June & December) - the festival is located inside the city itself, near the Cairn of the Huntress. Purple glowies are located throughout the city of New Halas, and down at the Frostfang Sea docks as well

Permanent Offerings

Tokens!

First, let me cover the tokens, since everything but the food and drink requires the spending of city tokens.

City Tokens, which are heirloom, can be earned from one of three quests offered by the Far Seas Quartermaster NPC located at the festival spot. They can also be earned from the completion of city (adventuring) writs, as well as crafting writs (timed and untimed), at the rate of 1 token per writ. (I've had confirmation from Domino that earning tokens for writs will start as soon as GU54 goes live, so you can start saving tokens in advance of the event. Huzzah!)

Token Exchange Merchant

An NPC named Claudia will now take 5 Concordium Note of Appreciation, or 5 Quellithulian Token of Appreciation, or 5 Academy of Arcane Science's Note of Appreciation, or 5 D.I.R.T.Y. Money and exchange them for 1 city token (these are old, old currencies from past events that have no other use now.)

Temporary Clothing Rental

Come to the festival without your festival clothes, did you? Why not spend one of your hard-earned tokens on a lovely outfit rental? (Outfits will poof when you log out.) Items are level 1 cloth appearance armor, wearable by all classes. Screenshots for these will be along as time permits, as Kaisha ended up with a LOT on her plate, image-wise, all at once.

Blue dragon gi

blue fancy dress

crimson fancy dress

dark fancy dress

dark formal outfit

gold fancy dress

green fancy dress

mauve dragon gi

teal dragon gi

white formal outfit

Some Temporary Outfits

All of these cost 1 token each on Test

"General Goods"

The General Goods vendor carries permanent clothing items as well as furniture. The paintings, each costing 10 tokens apiece, were the results of various player-submitted art competitions. Starting in April 2012, this vendor also offers the "imperceptible beauty" appearance clothing, which allows you to have a "bare" appearance in that slot.

This vendor now also offers a pair of teleport pads for your home, at the cost of 20 tokens. (You may have a total of 4 pads placed per home.)

basket of beans

basket of blueberries

basket of cranberries

basket of grain

closed wicker basket

open basket of peppers

shallow basket of blueberries

shallow basket of oranges

shallow basket of raspberries

shallow empty basket

blue festival lantern

green festival lantern

purple festival lantern

red festival lantern

yellow festival lantern

Antonican Battle

E'ci

Felwithe by Moonlight

Culling the Infidel

The Lord and His Minions

Amree and Saphrona:A Mentoring Session

My Immortal

The Mysterious Drafling

Wrath of the Overlord

Tunare's First Daughter

Celebration, Phoenix LegionStyle

Cheers!

It's Tapped

New Halas Camaraderie

To Beer Drinking

Welcome! Would YouLike a Pint?

crimson festival garb

dark festival garb

gold festival garb

green festival garb

shroud of the ever brooding

uniform of the forest assassin

Baskets cost 1 token each, lanterns cost 5 tokens each, the various "garb" items, the paintings, the imperceptible beauty items and the shroud of the ever brooding are 10 tokens each. The very much in-demand uniform of the forest assassin is 15 tokens. You can find size comparisons for the general furniture items here.

Food

What would a festival be like without cheap alcohol and overpriced junk food? These items cost coin (gold, silver, etc., not tokens)

dwarven brew (alcoholic)

brokenskull pirate rum (alcoholic)

house wine (alcoholic)

nerius pirate rum (alcoholic)

djinn and tonic (alcoholic)

isle of mara iced tea (alcoholic)

week beer (alcoholic)

deep fried brownie

festive cotton candy

mushy peas

beaver tail

hot popped corn

smoked giant vulrich leg

fish and chips

gelatinous cube jelly

elephant ear

hot sausage

Quests

Four quests will be offered while the festival is running. One quest requires crafting tier 1 food and drink, one requires tier 2 harvesting, one requires running to Mara for supplies, and the final one is for the aether races. All reward city tokens.

Far Seas Requisition: Special Order Crafting

You will need to help feed the festival workers. Cook up 4 black coffee or 4 white tea, plus either 4 deer sandwiches or 4 sunfish rolls, and bring them back to the NPC for a 4-token reward. If you plan ahead with resources, fuel, water and dough, you can use some tinkered portable cooking sets, and save yourself some running!

Far Seas Requisition: Special Order Gathering

Harvest up 25 units of the local resources. (For example, tier 2 resources in Antonica while the festival is in Qeynos.) This will reward you with two City Tokens.

Far Seas Requisition: Special Delivery

Head over to the Isle of Mara and speak to an NPC on the docks. Then click on the supplies sitting beside him, and head back to the quest-giver at the festival site. This will reward you with three City Tokens.

Aether Races!

Beginning with the April 2011 city fest for Qeynos, aether races were added to the city festival offerings. There will be C.R.A.S.H. pads rewarded for 5 races, as well as a title offered for those who beat a certain race completion time. Please post in the EQ2TC forums if you have the missing time/title information for any city's race.

Qeynos - starts at the lighthouse, the Bridge Buzzer title is rewarded for a time of 134 seconds or less.

Freeport - starts near the docks, with the Portal Jumper title rewarded for a time of 119 or less

New Halas - starts at the docks, with the Snowflake Chaser title rewarded for a time of __??___ or less

Gorowyn - starts at the docks, with the Wind Warden title rewarded for a time of __??__ or less

Neriak - starts outside the entrance to Neriak in Darklight Woods, with the ___??___ title rewarded for a time of __??___ or less

Kelethin - starts on the platform leading to the Green Knoll, with the ___??___ title rewarded for a time of __??___ or less